by M C Beaton
“Very well,” said Rose after a show of reluctance to hide the fact that she was relieved. A weak little Rose Summer, deep inside her, was beginning to wish she had never wanted to be a working woman.
♦
Miss Harringey, proprietor of the Bryant’s Court Hostel for Businesswomen, ushered Daisy into what she described as her ‘sanctum’, an overcrowded parlour on the ground floor, stuffed with furniture and framed photos, and where a small yellow canary in a cage looked out dismally through the barred windows at the London fog which was beginning to veil the streets.
Daisy was wearing one of the tweed suits purchased that day under a tweed coat with a beaver-fur trim. She was aware of Miss Harringey’s small black eyes studying her and wished she had bought second-hand clothes instead. Daisy’s own clothes back at Eaton square were mostly second-hand, but they were clothes that her mistress had usually worn only once and had taken a dislike to. She was sharply aware that what to Rose had been cheap clothes might look rather new and expensive to Miss Harringey.
Miss Harringey was a very solid woman, so corseted that she appeared to be wearing armour under her jet-covered woollen gown. Her face was large and heavy and her eyes disproportionately small. Her hair, an improbable shade of auburn, was worn in an Alexandria fringe.
“I would like to make it plain, Miss…er…”
“Levine.”
“Miss Levine. We only take ladies of impeccable reputation here.”
The clothes, thought Daisy – she thinks I might be a kept woman, as if a kept woman would want to live here!
“I can assure you,” said Daisy primly, “that me and my friend, Miss Summer, lead very hard-working lives. No gentlemen callers, I can assure you.”
“And where do you work?”
“At Drevey’s Merchant Bank in the City. We’re office workers.”
“I expect payment in advance.”
“How much in advance?”
Miss Harringey said, “Three months.”
“All right,” said Daisy.
“I have one double room available at the top of the house.”
“Can’t we have separate rooms?”
“None are available.”
“I’d better see this room.”
“Follow me.”
And so Daisy followed Miss Harringey up a narrow flight of stairs to the top of the house. There was a mixture of odours: gas, disinfectant, dry rot, baked potatoes, baked beans, and sour milk. And the all-pervasive smell of cabbage. “No cooking in the rooms,” said Miss Harringey as she reached the top of the stairs. Daisy sniffed the air and wondered how many of the tenants obeyed that law.
“This is it.” Miss Harringey threw open the door.
In the middle of the room stood an iron bedstead covered in thin, worn blankets. There was a rickety dressing-table by the window with a chipped marble top which held a china ewer and basin decorated in fat roses and a mirror. The ‘wardrobe’ was simply a recess with a curtain over it. A table and two chairs stood by the grimy window. There was a small gas fire.
“The bathroom is two floors down at the end of the passage,” said Miss Harringey. “You will need two pennies for the meter, and the bathroom is not to be used after ten at night.”
Daisy walked into the room. She crouched down before the mirror and adjusted her hat. Her rather protruding green eyes in her small face stared back at her.
Rose will hate this, she thought. Good, it might bring her to her senses.
“I’ll take it.”
“In that case, we shall descend to my sanctum and I will give you a receipt.”
♦
“Oh, good work,” said Rose when Daisy returned with the news of the room.
“It means we’ll need to sleep together,” warned Daisy.
“Oh, things will be fine.” Rose had overcome her fears and was now looking forward to the new adventure. “I have received a letter from Mr Drevey. We are both to start work next Monday. Eight in the morning until five-thirty in the evening. We are each to receive fifteen shillings a week.”
“Won’t go far,” cautioned Daisy. “Not after what you’ve been used to.”
“You have paid three months’ rent in advance, have you not? So we will have thirty shillings a week between us. We have our clothes. We can eat cheap food.”
“That Miss Harringey said there was to be no cooking in the rooms, but from the smell of the place, I don’t think anybody pays any attention to that.”
“The smell?”
“Well, it does smell a bit. But that’s life on the lower side. I mean, it isn’t as if we have to stick at it, now does it?”
“We must stick at it. I’ll wager that horrible Captain Cathcart is laying bets at the moment that we won’t be able to last the pace.”
“He wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why you are so agin him.”
“Against,” corrected Rose. “He did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge our visit.”
“Stands to reason. That old frump of a secretary doesn’t want to lose her job. She probably never even told him.”
“Oh…well, no matter. We’ll probably be very happy in our new life at Drevey’s bank.”
♦
Rose had expected her parents to be worried, but they seemed quite cheerful as she and Daisy packed up what they would need that weekend. She did not know that the earl had already called on Harry and had given him the address of Rose’s hostel or that Peter Drevey had promised to give Harry weekly reports of their daughter’s well-being. They were also cheered by the captain’s belief that Rose would not last very long in her new life. But mindful of the fact that they did not want Rose returning to Eaton Square in their absence, to be minded only by a maid whom both the earl and countess distrusted, they refused to give her a set of keys to the town house.
Mildly hurt, Rose said loftily that she would not need them.
♦
The weekend finally arrived. Lord and Lady Hadshire seemed indecently cheerful as they supervised arrangements for their journey to Nice. Rose was feeling even more uneasy about her new venture. She had rather hoped that her parents might shed a few tears and beg her not to go ahead with the scheme so that she could capitulate gracefully.
But at last her luggage, along with Daisy’s, was placed on the outside steps – two suitcases and one large steamer trunk – while a footman fetched a hack.
If this were a novel, thought Rose sadly, as the hack jerked forward, my parents would be waving a tearful farewell from the steps. The farewell had taken place half an hour earlier in the drawing-room and had taken the form of a stern lecture.
At last the hack turned down a narrow back street in Bloomsbury, Bryant’s Court.
“Is this it?” asked Rose nervously.
“This is it,” said Daisy. “I hope they gave you money to pay for this hack.”
“I still have some of my pin-money left,” said Rose.
The cabbie thanked her so effusively and said, “Good day, my lady,” that Rose was alarmed.
“He recognized me!”
“Nah!” said Daisy. “You tipped too much.”
The delighted cabbie had carried their luggage to the front door. Daisy rang the bell. The door opened and Miss Harringey stared at Rose.
“Don’t expect me to help you up the stairs with that luggage,” she said. “Come into my sanctum and I’ll give you your keys.”
Rose stood nervously while Daisy collected two sets of keys, one each to the front door, one each to the room.
“Miss Levine knows the way,” said Miss Harringey.
Rose was too depressed to say anything. Inside her head, a voice was crying, “What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”
They decided to carry the suitcases up first and then return for the trunk. Their suitcases were light because they contained nothing but their ‘working clothes’, but the trunk was heavy because it was not only packed with underwear but piles of books which Rose considered essential and Da
isy thought were a waste of time and energy.
Daisy unlocked the door to their room. “There you are,” she said cheerfully. “New home.”
Rose bit her lip. She would not cry. But the sight of the room depressed her so much that she felt a lump rising in her throat.
She forced herself to say, “I suppose it will do. Let’s get the trunk.”
Miss Harringey, hands folded on her rigid bosom, watched curiously as they struggled back up the stairs, carrying the trunk between them. Rose turned on the first landing and saw her watching and gave her a haughty, glacial stare. Miss Harringey sniffed and retreated to her parlour.
When they laid the trunk in a corner, Rose straightened up and looked around again.
“There are no curtains,” she said.
“That’s ‘cos we’re at the top of the house,” said Daisy. “Nobody can look in.”
“I want curtains,” said Rose. “Good, lined curtains.”
“You do that, and then the old bat will become suspicious if she starts snooping around. Look, we’ll buy some cheap ones.”
“And a vase for flowers. I need fresh flowers.”
“My lady…I mean Rose…you’ll need to get used to the new life.”
“A cheap vase and cheap flowers,” said Rose stubbornly.
“There aren’t any cheap flowers in winter.”
“We’ll get a vase anyway and prepare for spring. But curtains, right now. Run down and get us a hack.”
“People like us don’t take carriages,” said Rose patiently. “We’ll walk up to Lower Oxford Street, and then, if you’re tired, we’ll take the omnibus, and not first class either.”
Rose sat down on the bed. “Perhaps we shouldn’t rush into things. Light that fire, Daisy. This room is abominably cold.”
“I need a penny for the meter.”
Rose opened her handbag and took out her purse. “Here’s a penny. I suppose we’ll need to save a stock of pennies for the fire and the bath. Oh, we can’t even have a cup of tea.”
“Yes, we can!” said Daisy triumphantly. “You packed books, I packed essentials.” She put a penny in the meter and lit the gas. She unlocked the trunk and pulled out a small kettle, a teapot, a packet of tea and a paper twist of sugar. “No milk, but we can have it without. I’ve brought a pot and frying pan as well.”
Rose began to laugh. “Anything else?”
“Six sausages and two rashers of bacon and a loaf of bread.”
“But how on earth can you cook?”
“See!” Daisy pulled out a gas ring from the side of the fire. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Rose began to feel almost cheerful. Daisy lit the gaslight and made a pot of tea. She wondered if Rose realized that a hostel which boasted gaslight and a bathroom was above the common order.
“I am such a fool,” said Rose. “When I saw this shabby room, I almost wanted to run back to Eaton Square and hammer on the door and say I had made a dreadful mistake. We will go out and find somewhere to eat and then we will spend the evening in practising our Pitman shorthand. I wish to surprise Papa by making myself indispensable to the bank. I wonder what the other women will be like?”
∨ Hasty Death ∧
Two
O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
William Shakespeare
The alarm clock rang shrilly at six on Monday morning. Rose felt she had not slept at all. Daisy snored, Daisy cuddled up to her during the night, making Rose feel suffocated.
“Wake up!” said Rose. “Time to get ready.” Shivering, she lit the gas fire and the gaslight in its bracket by the door. “I’ll use the bathroom first.”
They had both had baths the night before, fearing they would not get a chance in the morning, but Rose wanted hot water to wash her face. She reflected as she lit the geyser over the bath, which exploded into life with a roar, that two pennies in the meter just to wash one’s face was already beginning to feel like wanton extravagance. The bathroom was a dismal place. The bath itself was a deep coffin of a thing, but fortunately it was now clean, she and Daisy having had to scrub it out the night before. She washed her face and then filled the jug from the bedroom with hot water and climbed back up the stairs.
“Brought you some hot water,” said Rose.
“What for?” asked Daisy. “We washed last night. Help me with my stays.”
Rose tied Daisy’s stay ribbons and then hurriedly began to dress. “The bank’s in Lombard Street, Daisy. How do we get there?”
“We walk.”
“But it’s so far!” wailed Rose.
“I’ll find out about omnibuses, or maybe we can get an underground train.”
“I know,” said Rose. “We’ll take a hack and get him to stop just short of the bank. Just this once.”
“Oh, all right,” said Daisy. “But we have to try to live within our means.”
♦
There were two types of typists in the City – the working girls who were struggling to better themselves, and the middle-class ladies who worked for pin-money.
The senior ‘girl’ was Mrs Danby, a thin, acidulous woman in her forties. She was middle-class and ruled her small staff of four typists with a rod of iron. Mrs Danby was not looking forward to the arrival of two newcomers, even though it was increasing her empire.
Mr Drevey had told her they were to be put in a separate room and made to type out the entries from the old ledgers. Mrs Danby pointed out that the ledgers were filled with meticulous copperplate handwriting and therefore did not need to be typed and the usually courteous Mr Drevey had snapped at her to do as she was told.
The doorman informed her of the newcomers’ arrival and she swept out in the hall to meet them; the only thing modifying her temper was the rustle of her new and expensive taffeta underskirt.
The two newcomers stood before her, irreproachably dressed. “I am in charge of you,” she said, a surprisingly loud voice emanating from her thin figure and thin trap of a mouth.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Daisy, holding out a gloved hand. “I am Miss Daisy Levine.”
Mrs Danby ignored the hand. Common-genteel, she thought. Her eyes turned on Rose, who was standing patiently.
“And you are Miss Summer?”
“Yes,” said Rose calmly, fixing Mrs Danby with a blue stare.
“Come with me.” Mrs Danby rustled off in front of them. She threw open a mahogany door revealing a small room furnished with a table, two chairs, a desk, and two typewriters and a pile of ledgers and box files. There was a small gas fire with a broken piece of asbestos which purred and hissed like some infuriated household cat. On the mantelpiece was a black marble clock with a yellow face. By the long window stood a hat stand.
“You are to type the entries in these ledgers,” instructed Mrs Danby, “and when you have completed each page, you will put it in one of these box files. You, Miss Summer, will start with the 1901 ledger and Miss Levine with the 1900 ledger. Take off your coats and hats and begin immediately.”
Rose and Daisy took off their coats, hats and gloves, and sat at their typewriters, facing each other.
“We need typing paper, if you please,” said Rose.
Rose had intended to modify her accent but she had taken a dislike to Mrs Danby and so her tones were the glacial, staccato ones of her class.
Mrs Danby opened the door and shouted, “Miss Judd!”
A small girl with a head of black curls appeared. “Typing paper for these two new workers,” ordered Mrs Danby.
She turned away. Miss Judd winked at Rose and Daisy and shot off to return in a few minutes with a large packet of typing paper.
“I will now watch you to assess your skill,” said Mrs Danby.
Rose and Daisy, like two machines, each put a sheet of paper in their typewriter, found the right ledgers and began to type with great speed and ease.
“I will leave you now,” said Mrs Danby majestically.
“One moment, Mrs Danby,” said Rose.
“At what time are we allowed to take our luncheon?”
Mrs Danby longed to tell them that they were to work right through the day but feared that the haughty Miss Summer might report her to Mr Drevey.
“Luncheon is at one o’ clock until two-thirty,” she said.
“Blimey,” said Daisy when Mrs Danby had left. “It’s better than I thought. They do themselves well here. A whole hour and a half for lunch!”
“This is make work,” said Rose. “There is no need for these ledgers to be typed.”
“May as well get on with it,” sighed Daisy. “If we’re awfully good, they might give us some real work.”
They worked hard and their shoulders were sore by lunchtime.
“I need to use the you-know-what,” said Daisy.
“There will be one at King William Street underground station. I read about it in the newspaper.” said Rose. “I do not want to see more of Mrs Danby than I need to.”
As both were still wearing the undergarments that ladies wore, they spent a considerable time in the toilets.
For the fashionable lady of the day wore an incredible amount of undergarments. To begin with, there was a garment known as combinations: a kind of vest and pants in one piece, made of fine wool, or a mixture of wool and silk, its legs reaching to the knee. It had a back panel which unbuttoned below the waist. Over this went the corset, usually made of pink coutil, boned and shaped to provide the fashionable hourglass figure. Then came the camisole, a kind of underblouse that buttoned down the front, was gathered at the waist and trimmed with lace round the neck and the diminutive puffed sleeves.
The knickers had lace frills at the knee and they were made from very fine material such as lawn, nainsook or nun’s veiling. Silk stockings were clipped to the corset. Then the large round petticoat was placed in a circle on the floor and stepped into.
The only advantage of all these layers of clothes, thought Daisy, when she and Rose emerged once more into the freezing air, was that they kept you warm. Rose had been pleasingly impressed by her first visit to a public toilet and thought it well worth the charge of one penny. It was spotlessly clean and all shining white tiles and polished brass and the female attendant had been courteous.
